Criminal Justice Students Study the Science Behind Crime Scence

Posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 [7:46 PM]

Criminal justice students Steffani Knight of Columbia, left, and
Leah Brown of Breeding,
Ky., are joined by University of Tennessee at Martin Assistant
Professor of Criminal
Justice Brian Donavant at this summer's National Forensic Academy
Collegiate Program.

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- A pair of Lindsey Wilson
College criminal justice students recently had an
opportunity to experience the real-life version of the American
police dramas that play out almost hourly on television.

The three-week program -- a partnership between the University of
Tennessee at Martin and the Tennessee's Law Enforcement Innovation
Center -- gives criminal justice students an in-depth look into
forensic science and also provides hands-on experience. Brown and
Knight were among 26 criminal justice students who attended the
academy this year.

"This was an incredible opportunity for our students because this
academy included other criminal justice students who are members of
Alpha Phi
Sigma (the national criminal justice honor society)," said LWC
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Michael Giordano.

While in Oak Ridge, Brown and Knight learned from forensics
practitioners, and they worked in laboratories and at mock crime
scenes. The also spent time in the University of Tennessee's "body
farm," which allows forensic students to examine human bodies in
various stages of decomposition and settings.

"That's one of those situations you simply cannot replicate in the
classroom," Giordano said. "You can talk about forensics work and
what happens to a body, but until you actually see it and examine
it, you don't have a full appreciation for it."

Knight graduated from LWC last spring, and Brown is scheduled to
graduate next spring from the liberal arts college. Giordano said
attending the Oak Ridge program will be an "incredible benefit" to
both students -- whether they attend graduate school, law school or
enter the profession.

"This was an excellent way for both of them to begin that
transition to the next phase of their academic and professional
careers," he said.